Unit 3 Recorded Presentation

A link to my Prezi that I used to go along with my Presentation and pitch

Magazine article on storytelling in games

Story telling Article by Anonymous j1Pk5Q on Scribd

Exported Animation

Final Robot Sidekick

Here are some picture of what it looks like had it been rendered and put in a game!

Audience feedback on script

Once I had done my first draft of my script I Gave it out to people within my target audience for them to tell me what they enjoyed about it and what needed to be done to better it. Firstly I think some of them were confused by the layout but within the video game industy, to the trained eye thats how its meant to look. I asked around 10 people and gave them a quick spped through of my script to see how they enjoyed it and they all came back with positive responses, I then took a step deeper and asked 4 of those to write down speacifically what they enjoyed or any evaluation they had for me. A lot of them said that My story held an 'interesting concept' and a 'unique narrative'.  Furthermore, two of them said that from the introduction that the atmosphere created from the description and illustrations that would be present is good.
Some criticism that they gave was that I could use some more dialogue and ontop of that actual names which is a key essientail I have yet to add. Additionally, The first person I actually gave the script to and gained feedback from did say that it was a little bit confusing but after I explained some bits alongside showing him the story board says it sounded fun. This isn't the worst thing as often video games start off a little blank so that the audience continue to play in order to fill them and find out more which is what I have attempted to do, propose some questions right of the bat!

Script First draft improvements

 

 

 

Evaluation of Storytelling

3rd Unit 74 Evaluation – Storytelling by michael on Scribd

Initial Sketches

 This is my response to drawing of a robot side kick and as you can see, all of my robots have unique ideas and were designed to fulfil different missions, however what they all happen to have in common is firepower and so weather it be for fighting or just defensive means they all have guns. most of them have human life characteristics such as arms and ligaments or at least a face. They can all move by themselves and have some sort of AI manoeuvrability. finally, the majority of them

Storyboards

Opening sequence for Perplexed

Closing Sequence for Perplexed

Storyboards were one of the most influential parts for me personally to monitor not only my progress but also my collate everything and see if works out. I planned out the start of my video game as well as one other key point which I chose to be the ending. I put in visual cues of what would happen essientially frame by frame to piece it together. This was good for me as I like to see things visually and could see if they would work out and how long it would take. It also ensured that I wasn't drifting off task by creating a film and with every frame I was forced to think about how it might appeal to my target audience and so thinking about props, setting and costuming as well as the framing and how I would display my characters. It would also mean that if I came to actually making the game I wouldn't waste money trying to come up with ideas as I would already have the structure of it.

Treatment for Perplexed

Treatment by Anonymous u8wMPqK3Yx on Scribd

Video Game Campaign Script Unit 74

CAMPAIGN SCRIPT by michael on Scribd

Game Story

Character Profile

This Character is where my story line revolves around. If I actually made my game you would be able to choose from different characters although they would have the same storyline in the end some components would change.

Character Sketches

Game Planning

 

This A3 sheet has broad ideas about my game that talks through various headers and can give you a overview of the game I have in mind. The bolder text is mainly Plot devices and this has key features or events that I know I want in my game but I might not have fully planned out yet. I was initially going to put this into a time line however I didn't want to restrict myself for space.

Audience Research - Game Ideas

Game Ideas Mind Maps

 

Initially I had this idea of a time traveling sniper who was the explanation of some of the worlds greatest mysteries and key poeint in histroy such as some of the unexplained deaths of celebrities to why and how events build up via the butterfly effect. I thought this was an extremely unique game and very original but when I was trying to come up with its whole story line I couldn't get it well rounded and so was a little bit loose ended.

 

This game was asurprisingly good hit with my target audience. This game has a fiarly simple context but has lots of major twists and turns. The games main character is customisable with things you find along you way and depeniding on whos lives you spare and which routes you take but at the begenning also you can choose from multipul characters. But key moments in the game will be inevitable and has a big shock factor being that there is no happy ending with only a slight resolution.

 

I think I came up with this game purely due to the fact I really enjoy Mirrors edge however I feel like a wide array of people have not played it and therefore only seen snippets of gameplay which can be boring and so might gain the wrong impression but none the less if you like mirrors edge then this would have been a sick game and one that we have all thought about! 

Mind maps were really effective as I could look at all of my ideas that I created and could essentially self-evaluate. The side by side layout allowed me to see what were good ideas and what were weak ones and similarities. This also improved my efficiency as I could merge ideas together and decide on them quicker. I was able to save money by evaluating the best ideas on paper through simple illustrations or words instead of going through up to the final production stage for it to essientially be a waste. 

Market Research Analysis

Having reviewed all of my market research, I can see that between a few of them, they hold similarities that I think make them effective and appealing. Firstly all of the games specifically know their target audience. The reason I say this is because when you look at little big planet they clearly have a distinct target market being a younger age group. This can be seen by all the bright vibrant colours and nature of the game. You essentially play as soft toys in an imaginative world. However looking at a game such as GTA they have very different approach as they feature weapons girls and violence on the front cover. This intrigues a older audience but also males as they have attractive females too. One thing that I realise in almost all modern games is the ability to do more than required. This means that you don't simply have to do the main missions but can do extra missions or simply explore yourself, this allows you to progress further in some cases but in others just allows you to have fun and takes away from the seriousness of most situations. Therefore, one thing I really need focus on and ensure would be a necessity is having an element of free roam or own decision making. Games that are well known for this are those such as Minecraft and Skyrim. These games are heavily open whereas games such as The last of Us allow for personal discovery but at the same time in order to progress you need to pass and complete objectives. A lot of the time spending these extra time of gameplay are often rewarded with collectibles or more value such as in Thief I found out that the more you explore and look down alleys the more gold you find which can be useful for upgrading weapons and abilities etc.

Summing up my competitor analysis I would say that all of the action adventure games have very unique features. These are what majorly sell the games as having also read reviews online the main thing they discuss is this, and so for The last of us they talk about the amazing graphic and griping storyline, In LBP they discus the fun environment and new generation platform game for all ages. For Thief is said to be all about the atmosphere with being an intruder and also it has lots of options to make it easier, more challenging or simply more specific with lots of settings that you can change. They also show consistency throught with the game style linking to its storyline, its advertising and characters. One thing that they all do is have twists and turns which keep the game progressing and getting deeper than first anticipated.

The oldest trick in book when it comes to video games is having a sudden plot twist, these always have and will always remain in games. Dating back to games such as Metroid when you find out the whole time you were playing as a girl to when you get betrayed in Modern Warfare 2. So when I'm coming up with the whole storyline I need to ensure there is a twist... Or two! This allows for the game to continue to be interesting and add a new level of intimacy to the game.

For my particular game I think I am going to create one more to the style of Skyrim rather than Mario Kart. Therefore if you look at other games relating to that then you can see that one technique they use is often allow you to sway one of two ways. Frequently this is either good or bad but more recently there are different choices. For example, in gang games such as GTA you can often gain loyalty or respect by doing more missions and actually choosing them over lifestyle such as in GTA IV where you have a girlfriend and you can choose which one to prioritise.

Having looking at all of my competitors it is clear that there are a very wide and extensive amount of games which is why I need to have a unique and original story line. I have found that in order for my game to improve on others I need to keep it interesting throughout but also have a lot of variation which makes it feel like the player is in control constantly. Some common occuracnces that I found out amonst my cometitors is that they often involve a lot of free will and so decision making and free play elements are key for also establishing charatcer.

This research that I carried out was all my own known as Primary and so I can vouge that the reliability of what I found out was backed up by me researching else where rather than relying on one source. Furthermore, I have played all of the games myself and so I have a first hand experience with them all. One way I could improve on these products is to challenge more typical conventions of a game therefor making it truely unique and creative. The games I evaluated were global games and therefore were aiming to attract the masses, However, Little Big Planet had Stephen Fry as the narrator and therefor was aimed at a more of a UK audience and so because of this i might be more enclined to like the game and so I would have to take sources of information from a wide array of sources.

The final stage was my secondary research. In this stage not only did I look at how to write storylines for video games but I also looked at some that explained how more recently game companies have challenged it in various ways, an example from my research being 'Gone Home' which is really heavily focused on its storyline in fact its known as an interactive book as the element of what used to be classed as stereotypical gameplay was very minimalistic. Another thing I found out that will influence the way I write my game is through learning that successful games are so due to their emphasis on escapism. A game can be made to pick up and play for 5 minutes but actual, thought through video games set not only the scene but also give backstory, everything that is displayed gives insight and has meaning behind every action. One way in which I could have improved my secondary research was by gaining a sheer larger amount of it. I could have also improved it by gathering research from more indy articles and blogger forums. By doing this I would have been eliminating the chances of getting a possibly biased article as my articles might have been wrote for the sheer promotion of a companies gameplay.

Considering Research

Deeper Interviews

These are audio recordings of a deeper question and answe interviews. I got 2 females and a male to answer questions relating to video games and spark a conversation with them to get them to think more and give me a more in depth responses.

Asset Journal

Once I felt I was happy with the overall out come having changed a lot of things throughout its fair to say that I have come a long way. One of the biggest changes being switching from the hard to work with gravityapplication which I understand is good for certain things, but when it comes to trying to immitate gravity in a video game situation I feel like keyframing allows me to have full control of where something is at any given time and I felt like I had a lot more freedom.

Some smaller touches that I made were actually having some of my objects appearing to bounce off each other. This is something I forgot about on the change over as when applying a field and or solver which is where the gravity was, you make the assets such as my blocks all active or passive meaning that when they collide they use physics and actually have a cause and effect. This however was not the case with keyframing but wasn't much of a problem as I could simply go to the keyframe where they meet and change their paths. An example of my first export where I didn't do this can be seen below on the cube that manages to go through the wall!

Another thing I did was just re arrange some of my assets, this required me to re export the selected assets and then change its position as it still wouldnt let me move anything that was key frammed and so once I had moved it a little I re imported the assets and they were fine. The reason I did this was to give my room a slightly fuller look as originally I wanted the room to be spacious to appeal to the target audience as science fiction games I feel are usually modern and efficient with space but when it came down to it, it looked empty and so these adjustments still kept it clean but also more intresting.

 

Audience Research Analysis

In this post I will explore in detail my results from my recent survey on Video games and specifically genre and looking into campaign.

My research group were all within the same age bracket from 17-18 and had similar economic statuses as all were studying in the last year of sixth form. This age group was picked as it matches my target audience if I were to make an action adventure game. I got 14 Males and 6 females so when analysing I have to keep in mind that factor.

My first set of questions I created so that I could get an insight into the types of people my audience is without being prejudice being one myself and so some of the more basic questions allow me to review this. For example there is a very wide range in music genres varying from person to person and so this tells me that they all like music but have very different interests however in later questions I find out that some answers are heavily weighted telling me that there are some things that are enjoyed/ disliked by all. They all have high aspirations and want to venture far from where they are showing keen attitudes and outgoing natures when it comes to occupations which was interesting as i found that all of them have part time jobs as well. Furthermore, I can see that they are engrossed with technology as a large majority are on social media and technology but also social going out with friends as this takes up 70% of question 4s answers.

When it comes down to favourite games of all time and the last game that they played although there were games such as call of duty which is a popular FPS very conventional along with fifa coming up many times there was no real correlation showing that everyone has different preferences. However, the online section of a video game which also translates to the interactivity of the game is a clear winner in peoples faverouite parts of a game and I need to incorporate this in to mine as it really makes a game feel realistic and more of a group thing rather than just an isolated activity. 5 people which works out to 25% of people said that the climax was their best part and so I need to have a key turning point/ moment in my game that is spectacular ignorer to generate hype and keep people entertained.

One thing that I found out was from inferring this data. If you look at what games people are most looking forward to along with peoples favourite games then you can see that solid foundation games such as Call of Duty and Halo and Red Dead Redemption, games that have masses amount of money gone into them and high production teams, might just be popular as people know what they are buying and so games that are more secretive and less giving away such as some indie games might not be as popular. My question on what makes a game stand out had 7/20 people saying it was down to little details such as key events happening later on in the game that were foreshadowed earlier on and other simple details such as external games within them. A close runner up was the complexity of a storyline so games such as skyrim rather than simple games such as flappy bird are preferred by this target range. A lot of these games also have a lot of freedom and free roaming ability as it makes the player feel like they are more in control rather than being shepherd or forced down one route even though there might only be one route it gives that illusion.

On some of my questions I learnt a lot more than I asked for and this can be seen in my 13th question about protagonists. Okay so I got the idea that my audience are aware of the stereotypical protagonist and the majority do want to see change in it but the fact that from the graph I displayed it as male and female views so that you can see that they are still fairly childish. From having answers where people simply circled them all showing carelessness but I can take this into consideration as it shows that they can get bored very quickly and so my game needs to constantly be interesting. Moving on however, in terms of location, the most preferred by far was the idea of any urban location. FPS games were actually deemed as boring according to my survey even though the majority of mentioned games were FPS but none the less giving a game a different persecutive can decrease emotion or connection or at least is believed to but still accomplishable as the GTA series proves.

Some interesting things that I found out was that a large percentage of people actually are bored of 'happy ever afters' this tells me that the audience age group of late teens/ young adults have played lost of similar and too far fetched games and so some reality needs to be brought back. If I am allowed to do this and still make my game conventional then this is what I will do which is possible by leaving cliff hangers or just making up a more realistic ending so that when a game does end they are still shocked.

My final question was more of a self expressive question and this gave me an idea that a common thing that is enjoyed by people who play video games this that they like violence, maybe not too much for some people but more importantly they all by then end showed me they have good imagination as none of them simply chose a gun as their weapon of choice but instead thought outside the box... maybe too much at times with the sexual related items which once again reinforced the possible stereotype of gamers!